


Coffee

by SullenDragon



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e08 The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg, M/M, happy endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-03 23:50:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10977972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SullenDragon/pseuds/SullenDragon
Summary: TSbyBS and coffee. *They* need new kitchen appliances.





	Coffee

Water on his face, dripping onto his shirt, sliding down his chest, splashing in the sink. He reached blindly for the dish towel hanging from the oven door handle. He pressed his face into it, scrubbing away the icy cold of the water and the hot pain of tears. He was fine.

Fine except his life was over, fine except that Jim wanted him to continue as his partner. Fine except that the academy sucked and Jim hadn’t touched him since the day of the press conference.

If he’d known that that hug—with the noogies and the cane, in front of his mom and half the station—would be the last touch…Well, he’d’ve stayed a little longer, clung a little closer, not tried to hide from Jim in those few, precious seconds.

He turned away from the sink, tucked the towel back into the oven handle, then thought better of that and dropped it by the sink. He’d have to hunt up a clean dish towel and hope Jim didn’t notice his using that one for non-dish-related purposes. He reached automatically for the coffee maker. It wasn’t there, had gone out with the trash two weeks ago, and he’d have remembered that if his brain was only working properly, not fogged by nightmares and sorrow and caffeine deprivation.

*

They’d broken the coffee maker having sex.

It wasn’t anything unusual or even particularly athletic, just one of them against the counter and a misplaced elbow.

He’d pressed Jim up against the counter, insisted until Jim came apart underneath and above and around him. He’d watched Jim’s face and only dimly heard that shatter when Jim’s elbow hit the carafe. There was glass everywhere and a couple of curse words, but then there was laughter and sighing and they’d had to come back the next morning to clean it up. They hadn’t cared.

They made coffee with grounds wrapped up in coffee filters, holding them up out of the mugs so the rubber bands didn’t flavor the coffee.

“No, Sandburg, I don’t care if you can’t taste it. I can, and if I can taste it on you...Gross.”

* 

They made coffee like that for two days, complete with coffee-flavored kisses. He’d meant to go shopping. Then there was the end of the first draft and there was Naomi, then there was Bartley and Zeller and Blair’s world falling down around his ears.

Blair finished his dissertation, put the final nails in a coffin he didn’t even know he was building. He laid them both inside it and closed the lid, but he didn’t encrypt the files. His mother sent it, then, sent the diss and ended Blair’s life as he knew it.

He didn’t try to touch Jim again. He kept his hands to himself, tucked close to his body or in his pockets. He’d ended Jim’s career. He ended his own just as definitively, praying that he might be able to fix a little of what he’d ruined. Not their—not _them_ , he couldn’t fix that, but maybe Jim could continue living his life.

* 

He continued to make coffee the same way, two mugs with filters full of coffee, for two weeks. Not quite the same, no Jim standing over his shoulder. It had only happened those few times, but enough to get used to it.

He left Jim’s coffee sitting on the island and fled. To his room, to the academy (only when required), to the shower. Anywhere that he didn’t have to see the pity in Jim’s eyes when he offered up the coffee (dark, with sugar and a side of Blair Sandburg’s broken heart).

*

Third day at the Academy. A Wednesday. Blair came home (still home, home-for-now) to the smell of coffee. He wondered if his over-worked body might be conjuring imaginary smells. Too early for Jim to be home, too late in the day for coffee.

He didn’t call out, as he might have a month ago. He was still waiting for the day when something he said set Jim off again, the day when Jim told him to get out and never come back. He dropped his keys in the bowl and dumped his backpack by the door.

Jim was, in fact, in the kitchen and there was coffee, made in a real, honest coffee maker. It was a terrifying, hulking monster of a machine, taking up twice the space the old maker had, with four times the number of buttons and switches. Blair trudged to the kitchen, shuffling around Jim, who was staring at the gray toes of his socks, to get to the water bottles in the refrigerator.

He’d slugged down half a bottle before he noticed it. His favorite mug, complete with coffee and steam and just the right amount of milk. It was sitting on the island, just in front of the left corner of the range, exactly where Blair always left Jim’s coffee.

“Wash your face,” Jim said. He ran a dish towel under the faucet and threw it at Blair, still avoiding eye contact. “You can shower after you try the coffee.”

He stared at the mug and then yanked the collar of his shirt up to wipe across his face, swab the sweat off, stave off a stress-induced crying jag.

He dropped his shirt back down and looked at Jim.

“’S good coffee,” Jim muttered, glaring back. Blair wanted to shrug it off, ignore the coffee that was so obviously meant for him. He couldn’t. He thunked the water bottle onto the counter, crunching it a little with the force of his hand. He picked up the mug and cradled it to his chest. It was hot, poured in the last five minutes, but the milk kept it just out of the range of “scalding.”

Jim straightened, dropping his own mug gently into the sink. “New coffee maker’s a good thing, Chief.” He headed up the stairs.

Blair stared down swirl of milk, the slosh of perfectly-flavored coffee. It gritted like volcanic dust in his throat. “I liked the old one.”

*

He’d meant to just walk away. Jim Ellison had been (was still) a Ranger, had led men into the field with worse plans in place, but the break in Sandburg’s voice burned all his carefully-crafted get-him-back strategies right to the ground.

It had been a _great_ plan. Woo him with coffee. Coax him back in slow, like a wildcat with a bad foot. Then strike, lay out all the reasoning, all the recriminations and rebuttals. Blair was hurting right now, pissed off at the world and himself and (though he probably wouldn’t admit it) at Jim. The “at Jim” part would take some work, because Jim hadn’t exactly been all kittens and rainbows those first few days, but if he could just convince Blair that they were still on the same side, he’d be golden.

So it was a good plan. A plan with exactly one weakness.

Unfortunately, that weakness was downstairs, sounding like Jim had burned his favorite books instead of offering him fancy coffee.

Jim sighed. Blair was headed for the shower now, and Jim wasn’t sure he could let this go on. The plan, the plan, but Blair wasn’t getting better, was sniffling into the mug he still carried. It had been two weeks. Maybe that was enough time to just go for it. If he let Blair go, he might go ahead and get over Jim and move out permanently. It was now or never.

Blair was in the shower, coffee beside the sink, clothes crumpled into the hamper (because since Zeller, Sandburg hadn’t stepped a toe out of line, hadn’t even sneezed in Jim’s presence). The door was locked, of course, but the little screwdriver that fit the apartment’s privacy locks was stashed above the door.

He eased his way in slowly, so quiet he could barely hear himself. He stripped down quickly, leaving his boxers in place. The last thing he needed was Blair thinking this was all a sex thing, and this was gonna look bad enough without throwing naked into the mix.

He ducked his head around the shower curtain, assessed the situation. Step in, or speak first?

“Hey.” He stepped into the shower quickly, pulling gently at Blair’s arms until he had him tucked up against him. They were both wet now, with Blair’s sodden hair flat against his skull and Jim’s arm.

Blair blinked water out of his eyes as he looked up at Jim, obviously stunned.

“Done listening to your pity party, Sandburg. How do we fix it?” He kissed Blair’s forehead, scowling a little when he got water up his nose.

“Fix what?” Playing dumb.

“This. Everything. Job, paper, us. You’ve been avoiding me. Where do we start?” He grabbed the shampoo off the little rack. He’d missed washing The Hair. When he washed Blair’s hair, Blair came straight out of the shower smelling like Jim. Nice.

“Don’t know. The Academy’s good, so far. Hard. Would you hate me, if we worked together?”

“No. Got some serious wires crossed here, Chief. Jesus, hate you.” He smacked Blair upside his soapy head.

“Can’t talk about the paper. Don’t even—don’t know. Hate everything.”

“Me? Sorry. I was an ass.” He had been. Justifiably, he thought, but still an ass.

“No, no, you did what you had to.” He pulled away from Jim to rinse his hair out. Jim followed and hovered just short of touching.

“Still an ass.”

“Maybe.”

Blair scooted around so that Jim could rinse off. Jim turned his face into the water so that he could ask again.

“Us?”

“If I make it through the Academy.” Blair stood around, hesitant, and Jim stripped his boxers off. They were beyond freak-out territory, he thought. He dropped them in the bottom of the shower stall. He’d do laundry soon.

“And until then? You’re going to tiptoe around me like we’re strangers?” Jim turned, shaking water out of his eyes. He flipped the water off and snagged a towel off the rack. He wrapped it around Blair and took the one in Blair’s hand to dry himself.

Blair didn’t answer. And still didn’t answer.

Jim was moving beyond concerned and polite. He grabbed Blair by the elbows and led them both out of the shower stall. He pushed into Blair’s space and fit their mouths together. Finally. One way or another, they were going to have this out.

“This” turned out to be a pretty mind-blowing kiss, because Blair jumped on the bandwagon P-D-Q.

When he started yanking at Jim’s towel, he had to take a deep breath and stop him. Blair was startled, but Jim had an argument all set.

“How do you feel about taking this party to the kitchen? I had a plan. If you didn’t notice, the new coffee maker has a metal carafe.”

“No glass to break? Great. But that’ll have to wait, man. There’s still half-a-pot of scalding coffee in that thing. I like your elbows—and your ass—better without coffee burns.”

“Dammit. Foiled again,” Jim muttered, grinning. He started for the stairs with Blair’s arm clutched in one hand. On his way past, he picked up the beaten, well-loved mug off the bathroom counter. The deep waft of their best Kona beans was weakened by the amount of milk Blair insisted his coffee needed, but the cup tasted like Blair. Not bad. Blair tugged him up the stairs and Jim nearly dropped the mug in his haste to follow.

Not bad at all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this a while back, finally got the end to be something I don't want to throw out the window.  
> This came about because [I broke my coffee maker] because I really wanted to write something resembling an actual, serious bit of short fiction for this fandom. Surprise, bridging genres is a lot harder than I thought it'd be. Fanfiction just has its own expectations and I didn't want to leave these guys being all sad like I might with original characters... *sigh* And then the metaphor was totally transparent and I'm just not subtle like Ernest Hemingway.


End file.
